I want to preface my comments to Raddatz's statement with a story that the Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery tells: "A Jew went to the Rabbi and complained about his neighbor. "You are right'" the Rabbi declared. Then came the neighbor and denounced the complainant. "You are right'" the Rabbi announced. "But how can that be," exclaimed the Rabbi's wife, "Only one of the two can be right!" "You are right, too," the Rabbi said.

Ever wonder what it would be like to visit the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Mahvish Khan is a law student at the University of Miami and has made frequent trips there. Read her very personal account My Guantanamo Diary in today's Washington Post.

"As an American, I felt the pain of Sept. 11, and I understood the need to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But I also felt the suffering of the Afghans as their country was bombed. And when hundreds of men were rounded up and thrust into a black hole of detention, many with seemingly no proof that they had any terrorist connections, I felt that my own country had taken a wrong turn."

[...]"Over steak dinner, I comment on how nice our military escorts are. They joke and laugh with us. Primo gives me pointers on shooting pool in the CBQ lobby. Everyone brings them beer and cigarettes. I think I had expected them to be more aloof, even hostile.

But Tom Wilner, a partner in the Washington office of Shearman & Sterling LLP, quickly retorts: "Yeah, they're nice. But this whole place is evil -- and the face of evil often appears friendly."

His words hit me hard. Tom is one of the most passionate lawyers working at Guantanamo Bay. He gets angry talking about the conditions under which the detainees live. Most are held in isolation in cells separated by thick steel mesh or concrete walls. Every man eats every meal alone in his small cell. The prisoners are allowed out of their cells three times a week for about 15 minutes to exercise, often in the middle of the night, so many don't see sunlight for months at a time."

Meanwhile the Mormon presidential hopeful Mitt Romney visited the Guantanamo Starbucks last week said that he "found that the detainees, to the extent I was able to observe this, were treated in a very responsible and humanitarian way, and came away with no concerns with regards to the fair and appropriate treating of those individuals." The Republican governor didn't attempt to speak with one of the prisoners.

April 29, 2006

The watchdog blog on the activities of the neo-Nazis - NPD-Blog - mentions the defection of Andreas Wagner - a leader of the new left WASG party in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - to the NPD. This also caught the attention of erphschwester. Conservatives immediately jumped on this news as proof that the Left and Right are really the same (Rot gleich Braun). In Bavaria the CSU party secretary Markus Söder claimed that this was proof that the WASG is an extremist political organization and should be under police surveillance. Some put the blame on Oskar Lafontaine for using the term "Fremdarbeiter" (alien worker) to drum up populistic support for the Linkspartei in last autumn's election.

In truth the right-wing extremist parties in Germany have often used socialistic slogans to attract working class support. The early National Bolshevists in the Weimar Republic fused Leninism with a voelkisch nationalism and found a great deal of working class support before they were subsumed into the NSDAP. And in the last years of the Weimar Republic there was a great deal of fluctuation in membership between the Nazi Party and the KPD - mainly due to the disasterous Comintern strategy of marginalizing the Social Democrats as social fascists. Hitler purged the party of its socialist wing - which helped him to power - in the bloody Night of the Long Knives in 1934.

The neo-Nazi NPD continues this tradition of coopting socialist populism. Its Web site features a banner demanding Soziale Gerechtigkeit (social justice) - the rallying cry of the European Left. And the NPD also cleverly taps into the prevailing anti-American sentiment in Germany. I read with interest this essay - Die blutige Spur der US-Kriegsverbrecher durch Zeit und Raum ("The Bloody Trail of the US War Criminals in Time and Space") - which sees a continuum of American war atrocities from the American Civil War, to the fire-bombing of Germany, to Abu Ghraib. I have read similar essays in the socialist papter Junge Welt. Still, as this excellent Tagesspiegel article points out, there is a major difference in how the Left and extreme Right define social justice: for the neo-Nazi NPD it is only native (that is, white, non-Muslim)Germans that deserve it:

April 28, 2006

The German Bush-Blog Davids Medienkritik has a post about how wonderful the conditions are now at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and how the German media are ignoring all the good news. As President Bush's poll numbers sink into the low 30s and 20s and support for Bush's Iraq War evaporates, the right-wing bloggers become increasingly strident in their tone; they lash out against the free press, Democrats, Europe, and Muslim minorities in the US and Europe. I note that Medienkritik now regularly quotes and links to Michelle Malkin, the racist darling of the far right wing in red-state America. Malkin frequently praises Guantanamo, and in her book In Defense of Internment she celebrates a shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and calls for similar action for American Muslims. Malkin and her admirers posture as patriotic Americans, but in their contempt for the US Constitution they are profoundly anti-American.

Bremen-born Murat Kurnaz has now been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for 4 years, 3 months and 27 days. Last year a US federal judge determined that there was no evidence that Kurnaz was involved with, or had contact to, any terrorist organization and should be released. Chancellor Angela Merkel brought up the case of Kurnaz during her visit to Washington in February. And yet he is still imprisoned, his fate unclear. To compound the frustration here, it now appears that Kurnaz could have been released four years ago, but this was thwarted by the intervention of German intellgence officials (BND). Die Zeit has come into possession of classified documents that put the actions of the BND in connection with Murat Kurnaz in a harsh light:

If the information in the classified dossier is true, it is a damning indictment of the BND and should be investigated. But let's be clear about one thing: it is the Bush administration and its enablers in the US Congress that bear the responisiblity for the unlawful imprisionment without legal due process = and the documented abuse - of Murat Kurnaz and the other detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

April 26, 2006

Last month two leading scholars on foreign relations, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, published a "working paper" entitled The Israel Lobby in the London Review of Books. The paper opens a debate on a taboo question: what is behind America's uncritical support of Israel even when this is demonstrably against its own strategic interest? The two authors knew they would accused of anti-semitism (and worse) by raising the issue, and they have not been disappointed. More than a month after its publication the paper continues to be at the center of a firestorm of controversy. The entry on Wikipedia has an excellent discussion of the paper itself as well as the current state of the controversy.

Germany is one of Israel's staunchest allies in Europe, and the response to the Mearsheimer-Walt paper has been rather muted. Spiegel published a fluff piece by its Schnappschuss writer Gregor Peter Schmitz. Schmitz is concerned only about the "scandal" the paper has caused within the ivy gates of Harvard - there is no discussion of Mearheimer and Walt's actual arguments:

Schmitz's article also contains inaccuracies - such as the claim that Walt has been forced out of his position as Dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard. In reality, Walt was planning to leave long before his paper was published.

Robert Misik in the Tageszeitung has a more serious examination of the paper, but in the end he also implies that the authors are anti-Semitic, since they are propagating a hysteria concerning a "Jewish conspiracy":

But a reading of the Mearsheimer-Walt paper does not support this conclusion: they do not point to a "conspiracy". The historian Tony Judt also refutes the notion that the paper points to a conspiracy in his New York Timesop/ed piece "A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy". Judt's essay is worth reading in its entirety, but he also points to an article by Christoph Bertram in Die Zeit, which is perhaps the the best account so far of the Mearsheimer-Walt paper. Bertram is supportive of the authors' primary goal in publishing their working paper: to initiate an honest debate on America's real interests:

April 24, 2006

As a former college instructor (in history and literature), i have always been interested in how students develop an intellectual worldview and how a college curriculum can help to shape it. Years ago I was fascinated by Wolfgang Leonhard's book Die Revolution entläßt ihre Kinder (English: Child of the Revolution) where he described how as a bright boy in Moscow he was picked to attend a special school for future communist leaders and functionaries. At this Stalinist Madrassa, Leonhard received a rigorous training in many subjects - but all with a Marxist-Leninist slant. No deviation from the party line was tolerated. After the war, Leonhard was sent to East Germany along with Walter Ulbricht to establish a communist dictatorship. In 1949 he turned his back on Stalinism for good and defected to the west.

I thouht about Leonhard and his experiences as I listened to this National Public Radio program which features a conversation with three students from Patrick Henry College . Patrick Henry College is a small school in Virginia where a reactionary form of Christianity is taught along with neoconservative political theory. The students have all been home-schooled by fundamentalist Christian parents, which means they have never been in a classroom with African-Americans, Muslims or gays and lesbians. At home they were taught that God has a special covenant with America, Europe is a cess-pool of atheism and relativism, and the United Nations is doing Satan's work. These students don't have to worry that they will encounter Jews or Muslims at Patrick Henry College, for in its Statement of Faith the college maintains that these non-Christians "shall be tormented in Hell for eternity." They also will never see an openly gay person, even on television, since these young adults need their parents' permission to watch popular television programs like Will and Grace that feature gay characters. Their internet access is filtered of any "un-Godly" content.

The College's Statement of Biblical Worldview is a remarkable document, to which all students and faculty must subscribe. Among other things they profess their allegiance to the following principles:

The Bible is sole repository of Truth.

The earth was created in six 24-hour days (must make for interesting 'science' classes.

Men are the "head of their wives".

Blind obediance to the "Government" is required - dissent is un-Christian

It is chilling to listen to these students; all of them are seniors who have been subjected to four years of the Patrick Henry curriculum. It would not be so bad if these young men and women were going to go on and teach Bible school at some backwater town in Alabama, but graduates of this college are highly sought-after by neo-conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute. Or they help manage the political campaigns for Republican candidates. Ignorant of foreign cultures, trapped in a narrow and hateful ideology, these students are the architects of America's future wars.

Here's something I didn't know, even though I lived in and around New York City for 16 years: Adolf Hitler had a nephew living on Long Island.

"The visitor asked the landscaper about his father, who was born William Patrick Hitler, son of Alois Hitler Jr., who was Adolf Hitler's half-brother (they shared the same father). Alois called his son Willy. The Führer called Willy "my loathsome nephew."

Willy Hitler was born in 1911 in Liverpool, and in his early years occasionally sought to take advantage of his last name, in England, Germany and then America, where he moved in 1939. After World War II, though, he decided to change the name and moved from New York City out to Patchogue on Long Island. He raised four sons — Alexander, Louis, Howard and Brian — before he died in 1987 at age 76.

Howard died in a car accident in 1989. The other brothers continued low-profile jobs, Alexander as a social worker, Louis and Brian with their own landscaping business. They are regular Long Island guys, middle-aged and middle class, two of them living together. They are also the last members of Adolf Hitler's paternal bloodline.

Now an off-Broadway play about the "loathsome nephew" - Little Willy - has opened to mixed reviews.

Hitler himself was woefully ignorant about America and would have done well to visit his Long Island relatives. I recently read the memoirs of Ernst "Putzi" Hanfstaengl, the Harvard-educated advisor to Hitler who tried in vain to educate Hitler on the importance of America. According to Hanfstaengl's account in "Unheard Witness" Hitler ignored his advice, preferring to believe the assessment of his "court philosopher" Alfred Rosenberg that America was "controlled by the Jews".

April 22, 2006

Religion and politics make a volatile mixture, which is why we have the separation of church and state in the US. Since he began his presidency six years ago President Bush has attempted to eliminate this separation with his "faith-based initiatives". For the most part, these initiatives are blatant attempts to dismantle the social welfare state: funds for sex-education and birth control for teens are replaced with Christian abstinence programs; medical care for poor Americans is replaced with intercessory praying; funding for public education is replaced with vouchers for Christian schools where Creationism or "Intelligent Design" are taught as science. Now Germany is getting a taste of faith-based politics through Family Affairs Minister Ursula von der Leyen and her Bündnis für Erziehung (Alliance for Upbringing). The Evangelical Web site IDEA reports on how Frau von der Leyen (mother of seven) is informing family policy with Christian values:

The secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, said he found the decision not to include other religious faiths in the project beginning on Thursday "quite painful."

"It is like in school -- Ms Von der Leyen has failed, she did not pass the test," Kramer told the daily Abendzeitung in the southern city of Munich, adding that education on ethics should not be linked to a specific religion.

The Web site Islam.de also has an article that is quite critical. In many day-care centers and Kindergaerten the majority of the children come from Muslim families.

In spite of her misstep in inviting only Catholics and Protestants to the alliance, I think the actual program she has put forward is great. Von der Leyen is proposing that parents receive up to $2,200 per month to stay home with the newborn for the first 12 months - provided the father stays home for two of those months. A similar program that helps fathers stay with their newborns has been a big success in Sweden. Volker Baisch, who runs the organization for German fathers Vaeter e.v. is an enthusiastic supporter of the plan. How would it work for single parents, or for same-sex parents?

UPDATE: The New York Times has a nice profile of Rabenmutter von der Leyen.

April 20, 2006

Last weekend I saw the excellent film The War Within (2005). The main character is a Pakastani student in Paris who is nabbed on the street (presumably by the CIA) and flown to Afghanistan where he is tortured. The experience transforms him and he is later smuggled into the US where he joins a terrorist cell in New Jersey. What the film shows is the US policy of "extraordinary rendition" - the outsourcing of torture. Amnesty International has a new report on extraordinary rendition - Below the Radar: secret flights to torture and 'disappearance' . The German citizen Kahled al-Masri is one of the lucky victims: he was let go, once it became apparent his abduction was a case of mistaken identity. Dozens of others - according to the Amnesty report - have simply vanished.

The practice of extraordinary rendition has led to a revolt inside the CIA. As fissure has opened up between the 'SS contingent' - who blindly follow orders - and the 'Wehrmacht' - those who resist the illegal actions and are worried about legal consequences. Ken Silverstein has a report on this internal conflict on the Harper's Web site:

An ex-senior agency officer who keeps in contact with his former peers told me that there is a “a big swing” in anti-Bush sentiment at Langley. “I've been stunned by what I'm hearing,” he said. “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don't want to get caught up in it.”

This former senior officer said there “seems to be a quiet conspiracy by rational people” at the agency to avoid involvement in some of the particularly nasty tactics being employed by the administration, especially “renditions”—the practice whereby the CIA sends terrorist suspects abroad to be questioned in Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and other nations where the regimes are not squeamish about torturing detainees. My source, hardly a softie on the topic of terrorism, said of the split at the CIA: “There's an SS group within the agency that's willing to do anything and there's a Wehrmacht group that is saying, 'I'm not gonna touch this stuff'.”

We know that the 'Wehrmacht group' has cause for concern. When the truth comes out, it is the low level operational people that will pay the price. Those at the top who developed the policy and gave the orders will no doubt emerge unscathed, or, like George Tenet, receive the Medal of Freedom.

April 19, 2006

In the US the debate rages on comprehensive immigration reform. One proposal (endorsed by President Bush) would involve a "guest worker" program, granting temporary work visas to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. As Colin Nickerson points out in today's Boston Globe, that idea has not worked out so well in Germany:

"In Germany, guest workers -- mostly poorly educated young men who were issued special visas allowing them entry for one or two years to take unskilled jobs -- helped the nation to become the third-richest in the world. The fabulous post-war prosperity of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and other West European countries was also boosted by immigrant labor, mainly from Turkey and North Africa.

But more recently, as economic growth has slowed, swelling numbers of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa -- many of them arriving without any visas, or overstaying their visas and melting into the ethnic suburbs -- are being blamed for social stresses from urban blight to chaotic schools."

The failure of these German guest workers to assimilate is having consequences everywhere in Germany - from the Ruetli school in Neukoelln to the suburbs of Stuttgart. Many - even those third generation Turkish-Germans who grew up speaking German - feel alienated:

"According to government figures, Germany boasts 64,600 entrepreneurs of Turkish heritage, responsible for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Yet people of immigrant stock are still regarded with a mixture of curiosity, caution, and occasionally contempt by many Germans.

''I served in the German Army in Kosovo, and only considered it my duty to my country," said Ali Yapici, 28, an insurance executive whose parents emigrated to Berlin as guest workers in the 1960s. ''Yet among ordinary Germans, I'm treated as a kind of outsider, almost a second-class citizen, even though I speak the same language and share the same hopes of making a good life."

He said: ''Guest workers came to Germany when they were necessary. Both sides benefited. It would be nice, now that times are difficult, if there was a sense of us all being in the same boat. Different people together in one society. But that's the American dream. Here, instead, they look at the immigrants: 'Why are you still here?' "

But Americans will have a chance to learn first hand from an "expert" in German immigration issues. The Web site Sign and SIght is sponsoring a forum next week in New York City which will include the Turkish-German writer Necla Kelek. She -along with Hans-Peter Raddatz - is the darling of the right-wing talk show circuit since she is more than willing to share her vast knowledge concerning the evils of Islam. In her most recent book - Die verlorenen Söhne - Necla Kelek interviews Muslim men in Germany who are imprisoned for criminal activities and comes to the conclusion that all Muslim men are criminals and should be imprisoned. She blames Islam and the advocates of a multicultural society. I'm sure the approx. one million peaceful, prosperous Muslims who live in the New York City area will benefit from Necla Kelek's lecture.